This story is dedicated to all of you who's having a rough time. Hang in there, it'll get better.
"That's right Katie. One step at a time. Just put one foot in front of the other"
He sees her grunt and wobble. He senses her panic when her shoulders stiffen and her eyes widen slightly. It's all in her body language with Katie. She'll never come out and say what she's feeling but her shift in posture will help indicate her discomfort, her sighs-pain and her eyes-panic. She's closed off, her emotions kept at bay when she's lucid but when she allows herself to be soothed by painkillers, her defences dissolve along with the pain.
"I'm right here Katie. I'll catch you if you fall. Just walk to me. Come on, you can do it" he watches as she bites her already battered and bloodied lip, fighting through the pain before she takes a cautious step, eyebrows furrowed in concentration.
Jim thought back to the last time he uttered those words to a similar effect.
An image of a diaper clad baby Katie came to mind and just like the last time, Katie was walking towards him. Only, this time was different. Johanna wasn't opposite him wearing a smile that he swore was going to split her face, he wasn't grinning and Katie now had a bandage on her chest covering the scar that would forever mark that dreadful afternoon. As if they needed any reminders.
His baby girl was shot and in those moments after, he never believed in a higher power more that he did then. In AA they teach you about acknowledging it but to Jim it was all null and void, because if a higher power really did exist then Jo wouldn't have been taken away from him which would save him so much heartache in the long run. He wouldn't need to believe in this superior being nonsense because he wouldn't even be in an AA meeting.
No, he'd probably be stealing bacon while Johana was busy tending to something else or he'd be watching with his wife as his baby girl graduates as a lawyer. Maybe this is why it all happened though, he thinks. If his little girl was not lying on the operating table fighting for her life then Jim Beckett could have gone his whole life without acknowledging the need for a belive of a higher power. But she was, and he did, and now Katie is alive and breathing. She's far from okay but she's alive and he'll take that.
He knows she dreams about the incident. He can't bear to say shooting, neither of them can. Saying it out loud makes it all the more real. It puts it out there and while the bullet already broke skin and shattered bone, he's not sure that it's been acknowledged. His daughter stared mortality in the face and he does not want to dwell or he's sure he'll drive himself mad with the what-ifs and could-have-beens.
In the still of the night he hears her anguished screams for Castle and unintelligent wailing. His heart breaks a little more everytime she calls out for her mother. He knows her subconscious is altering that afternoon and giving her a play by play vividly in the worst way. He rushes to her the moment his ears detect the beginning of her screams and he tries to get her to talk about them but she never does. His little girl never wants to talk about the weight she carries on her shoulders and he thinks it's partly because she believes that he can't handle it.
Frankly he's not sure that he can.
He's not even sure that he's properly processed that she's shot but still breathing but he's willing to do anything to make his baby girl hurt less. So he holds her. He holds her as she weeps against his chest and he holds her tight reassuring her that she's safe. That's she's okay. Maybe the more he says it, then they'll both start to believe it. He assures himself that she's alright when she's fast asleep and he just watches her, the rise and fall of her chest easing his worries. His daughter is alive and breathing. She was shot but she's alive now.
He used to tease Jo when he would find her asleep by Katie's cot because she was afraid that their baby girl would stop breathing in the dark of the night. He would tease her but now he understands the pure terror his wife felt and he wishes for the ignorance he once used to posses. He does not get it because he used up his wish that day in the cemetery.
She's a far cry from being okay.
He notices her sitting by the window every day looking out at the driveway as if expecting someone to appear. He knows she'll never admit it out loud but his gut tells him that she wants her writer and his gallow humour. He can see it in the way she stares at her phone willing it to beep and the way she rereads all his books; inhaling them as if his words were her lifeline and she was drowning. In some ways he realises that she is and that his words are her anchor, grounding her.
He's certain that she's not okay when he sees her startle at the slightest of noises and sleeps with her curtains drawn back, moonlight illuminating her form. He likes that her room is now lit by the stars as it helps him see that she's alive when he goes to check on her but, it also reaffirms that she's afraid.
Katie always slept with the room bathed in darkness but lately it seems like she can't bear the dark. She avoids it like it's the plague and he knows that in some ways it is. The darkness makes the fears that plague her more real. He noticed when she drifted towards the open window and her breathing came out in ragged short breaths when the power went out last night. They don't talk about it but he knew.
He buys her the latest Castle book knowing that she'll want to read it. He knows she's partly in denial over what happened when she drops the book he gave her like it burnt. He kept it in her bedroom on her bedside table though because he understands that if it was anyone who was going to help her come to terms with what happened it would be Castle, just like he did years before with her mother's murder. He pretends not to notice when she cries at reading his new book. That night he sits outside her door because he knows that she'll have a nightmare and he wants to be there, to save her this time.
His daughter is broken and confused and realistically he is aware that pancakes and hot cocoa does little to mend the wounds but he doesn't know what to do. He's her father and he does not know how to help his little girl. A part of him wants to call the writer himself, demand that he shows up but he knows that she'll never forgive him if he lets Castle see her like this. His little girl is so fiercely independant. It physically pains him to watch her struggle internally before allowing even her father to help. This is what he's turned her into. His alcoholism broke her and she still looks at him like he might shatter if she so much as winces and that breaks him. His baby girl feels the need to put up a strong front in front of him, her father. The man that was supposed to protect her. The same man that abandoned her to the bottle the last time. Not this time. He was here and he was ready to carry her weight. Lord knows how long Katie had been pulling his, it's the least he can do for his little girl. His little girl with a bullet scar on her chest.
••••
He nearly screams and plots to lock her up when she tells him that she wants to go back to the city, back to the force. He can't stomach the thought of her running around at all hours of the day chasing down killers. Especially not after an attempt on her life but he sees the way her jaw is set in determination and he knows that although the sentence was phrased as a question it wasn't one. He lets her go and the clench in his stomach returns full force. He can only hope that each night his baby girl will fall into bed and sleep. That she'll continue to stay alive.
Jim is not a religious man but after that fateful day in the cemetery he takes solace in a higher power and he trusts that if he prays hard enough it will keep his baby girl safe and alive. It's all he can hope for.
A/N : This took so much editing and rewriting. Initially I was going in another direction but the story just took over. I tried to get into Jim's head as a father watching his daughter get shot and then taking care of her. Let me know what you think. :)